Goodbye Station Wagon

 It finally got to the point where it was no longer worth it to put in the money to keep fixing this car up.  And although it does seat 7 (8 if we wanted to stick a kid up front between the driver and passenger), we weren't looking forward to a kid always being in the backwards facing seats.  It was time to say goodbye.  We bought this car in Ventura, CA in September 2002 when Princess Sparkley was one month old.  Since then it has seen just a bit of the country.

 Our station wagon had been to 27 states and the District of Columbia.

CA NV UT AZ TX NM CO OK KS NE SD AR MO 

IA MN IL IN OH KY TN NC VA WV MD DE PA NJ DC

saying goodbye

And after *only* 5 hours at the dealership, we are now the owners of an 8 passenger Honda Pilot. Black wasn't our color of choice, but it was the only color they had in stock of the low end Pilot.  We're debating names... right now it looks like it'll be Darth something.

 

PS documented the car buying process with her camera, here are a few of my favorites:

The Drive Home

We left Ohio Sunday (January 10) morning around 11 AM.






Pictures taken from Interstate 68 in West Virginia out the car window. We were lucky, the drive was beautiful because all the trees were covered in snow, and none of the snow was on the road.


Brandonville, WV


Sunset as we were leaving Brandonville.

I got some better pictures of this sunset, but they are really blurry from the moving car and the dirty windows.

We saw a lot of deer on our drive... it turns out they are much easier to spot when the trees are bare and it's snowy.

Driving to Ohio

B's parents moved to Ohio in August/September. It is about 9 hours from us. With the weather, stopping for lunch, and the few detours we made to get counties, it took us closer to 11 or 12 hours.


B peeing into the longest creek in West Virginia during a county getting detour.


Baby X you can see LOVED the drive (that's sarcasm). Actually, he was pretty good most of the time.

Maryland and Delaware County Trip

B is of course itching to get all the new counties we live by now, so last Saturday we went on a little county trip. It was especially exciting because the kids all got two new states (Maryland and Delaware), B got Delaware and we all finished Delaware (since the state only has three counties).


We started off at the Washington DC Temple in Maryland.



Next was the Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis.



Then across the Bay Bridge (super exciting for Buddy) and the Chesapeake Bay (hooray, our first near glimpse of an ocean in years) into more Maryland... then Delaware and the Capitol in Dover. Fun fact about Delaware, is has more people in it than Wyoming. Who knew?? And no sales tax. On the way back, in Sassafras, MD, we had to stop for a draw bridge. If there wasn't also a super long suspension bridge and a tunnel on this trip, Buddy would have for sure picked the draw bridge. It was a toss up. That top corner picture of Buddy was taken as we're watching the draw bridge go up.

We also documented Baby X's left handed tendencies as he sat in the backseat "coloring." He's been throwing and eating with his left hand lately.

Princess Sparkley's take on vacation

PS inherited my old digital camera when I got a new one... and it takes WAY better pictures than the $15 kid camera we bought her last year. Here are some of my favorite pictures I discovered when I uploaded her pictures.



Top to bottom. Left to Right.
1. In the car
2. We spotted moutains
3. Buddy and B at Black Canyon of the Gunnison Nat'l Park
4. Grandpa's new dog, Fenway, taken from a safe distance
5. Grandpa and Fenway on the new cabin porch
6. Cousin N (almost 2 1/2).*
7. Cousin A (9 1/2)
8. Buddy's bum. There were two pictures like this. I have no idea why.
9. me
10. Flowers
11. Cedar Breaks National Monument
12. Grumpy Baby X in the car
13. Somewhere in Colorado on our drive home.
repeats... sorry, I just realized it repeated the first three pics again.



*This was the first time everyone but me and Baby X met N.

Denver and the drive home

We left the cabin early Saturday (July 11) morning, drove forever and arrived in Denver around bedtime Saturday night. Sunday we slept in, almost missed breakfast at the hotel because our hotel guest book said breakfast was served until 9:30 but when we arrived at 8:55 they were about to clean up because the sign there said breakfast was only served until 9. Argh. B and the kids "swam" in the hotel pool which was only slightly larger than a hot tub but still managed to have a range in depth from 3 feet to 7 feet.*

We took our hotel shuttle to Coors Field (which, much to my surprise is no longer Mile High Stadium) for a Colorado Rockies vs. Atlanta Braves game for $4 a ticket. We were there early, Buddy got a practice ball one of the players threw into the stands, received four miniature ceramic stadiums (which Buddy LOVES) and B and I got incredibly sunburned knees, but I guess we're lucky that's the only sunburn we got. It was hot. The game went long, but luckily for a good portion of it the clouds rolled in between us and the sun. Also, Baby X fell asleep which made him much easier to handle at a ballgame. The Rockies ended up winning in the 9th. But by the time the game ended, our hotel shuttle returned us to our car, and we ate dinner, it was nearly 8PM and we still had about a 9 hour drive ahead of us. Yuck.

We ended up driving in lots of lightening, rain, some hail, getting stuck in a muddy ditch at 1 in the morning (luckily a AAA tow truck was nearby and we didn't crash into the ditch, just accidentally backed off the road into it trying to turn around. And Baby X slept through it all.)

We ended up pulling over and sleeping in the car for a few hours around 3 or 4 in the morning. Then woke up and drove again arriving home around 9AM.

B vacuumed out the car along with a bunch of sand from Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park and washed all the red dirt from the Utah mountains and the mud from our late night escapade in a ditch. The car has been unloaded, the laundry is washed (but not folded). There are stacks of stuff all over that I need to put away. And then the mass packing begins for our move in 17 days. AHHHHH.




Oh, and on this trip Baby X started this. He points and loudly declares Uh EH!!!!! And most things are also "Bbbb." Ball. Balloon. Bus. Etc. He does it a lot. And loudly. At first it was cute. After awhile, we were a bit annoyed with it. He'd keep it up until you acknowledged what he'd seen... even if you had no idea what it was. He did it loudly throughout the entire HyVee grocery trip I took him on yesterday afternoon after we got home.



*Why do they have such deep pools at hotels when they don't allow diving or jumping?? My kids can't swim. I wish all hotel pools were a maximum of 4 feet deep.

Cabin Trek 2009: Day 1

My parents built an A-frame cabin in the mountains above Cedar City, UT in about 1968 when they were living in Las Vegas. It was a bit further away when we were living in southern California during my childhood, but we still visited often. Over the past couple of years my parents and brother have bought land and built a bigger cabin with electricity and running water (the old cabin did not have such luxuries).

We left home Friday, June 26th in the afternoon, stopping at the library in Topeka to stock up on even more books to entertain our kids (mainly to PS since she finishes at least one library book before we've left the library parking lot) on the long drive and the subsequent time at a cabin lacking a TV or internet access.


Here's Princess Sparkley hurrying to finish a book before we return it.


Our first day's drive was not long... about four hours to Hays, KS.


Buddy and PS in their hotel bed.


Baby X did not do so well the first night in a hotel... here he is the next morning asleep in our bed. Luckily this horrible night did not reflect the entire vacation or we might have only lasted a day.

Friends

We're heading on a trip this weekend to Minnesota and South Dakota (new states for all of us), via Nebraska and Iowa (not new states). We're going to Little House on the Prairie pageants in Walnut Grove, MN and DeSmet, SD. We're stopping on the way in Sioux City, IA to see our good friends who moved up there last year. Here are some drawings Princess Sparkley did of she and her friend L. And here's what L really looks like. I love it!!

this is them 2 years ago, I couldn't easily find a better picture.

the entertaining straw

For B's Fall Break from school we took a trip to St. Louis to see the grandparents. But not just any trip, a county getting trip. So the four hour drive was more like twelve. But B is five counties away from finishing the state of Missouri. (Interesting fact: armadillos live in Missouri. We saw dead ones on the side of the road... so I guess we have no proof that they LIVE in Missouri, but at least that they died there. Armadillos are one of those animals like a kangaroo that seem sort of fictional in nature to me, so it was weird to see that they are in fact real.)

So it was a long drive. We stopped for lunch at Taco Bell and for the next two hours, Boy was completely entertained by this straw. Then he fell asleep. Then he played with it for another hour. It was a bridge, a tunnel, a crossing arm for a train, a crossing arm for a bridge, a steeple, an arch, etc. Who needs toys?

Sleeping in the car

Don't you love the sleeping in the car shots? B told me to take this and we can show it to all the boys who come knocking on our door trying to date her in ten years.